


the sky is on fire (let it rain on me)

by wanderlustnostalgia



Category: Bandom, Halsey (Musician), PVRIS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cameos, Cannoli Appreciation, Cheesy, F/F, Fluff, Members of Fall Out Boy, Minor Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie, Short & Sweet, but what else is new, california is on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-12 23:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16005890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustnostalgia/pseuds/wanderlustnostalgia
Summary: California is on fire.





	the sky is on fire (let it rain on me)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during the wildfires up in Santa Rosa and the surrounding areas and never finished it, but basically this is loosely based on true events and thankfully (hopefully) the fires have started to die down a little. California has no chill.
> 
> (sidenote: please show some love for your first responders. they work so hard and have saved so many lives and they deserve all the gratitude in the world.)

California is on fire.

It’s plastered all over the news—in the paper, online, flashing by on TV screens while concerned reporters relate updates from behind the comfort of their desk.  Not everyone can see the flames, but their presence is unmistakable, the stench of smoke drifting down from the scorched vineyards of Napa and the charred remains of Santa Rosa, brushing a gray haze across the sky.

California is on fire, and though the wind is cold as October winds get, the air is like the inside of a charcoal grill, and you are the meat.

Two days after it started Lynn bikes to school, the odor tingling her nostrils.  The sun as it looms over the horizon is a fiery orange.  It threatens like an omen, a harbinger; like the end of something, or maybe just the beginning.  She locks her bike by the theater and from her vantage point she can see it lurking low over the hills, the trees, the line of quiet houses in a quiet suburban neighborhood.  Class doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes.  She stands there with a hand shielding her eyes, watching, waiting for something she doesn’t know so much as she feels, deep in her bones.

The bus pulls in with a mass of kids, and one of them walks up to her and hooks an arm around her waist.

“That,” says Ashley, nodding toward the horizon, “is fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Her hood is drawn all the way in and she’s wearing a black mask; her eyes are all Lynn can see of her face.  Menacing and yet somehow perky, like a little girl in a ninja Hello Kitty costume.  “It’s terrifying,” Lynn says, and then smirks.  “Like you.”

“But gorgeous.”  The arm around Lynn’s waist tightens, pulls her in closer.  “Like you.”

“You’re disgusting.”

Ashley scoffs, offended.  “Way to ruin the moment, Lyndsey.”

“Well, _excuse me_ for telling the truth.”

But she nuzzles into Ashley’s hood, presses a kiss to her temple, and Ashley works her fingers into the pocket of Lynn’s hoodie, and they stay there until the bell rings, watching.  Waiting.  Feeling.

 

\--

 

It’s mid-afternoon and the sky is on fire.

Everything is bathed in dusky orange glow and Lynn emerges from class, glances from the ground to the sky and says, “It looks fake,” like the studio lighting at a department store moonlighting in professional photography, like the artificial hominess of a chain restaurant.

The air still smells like smoke.

Pete Wentz is here.  All the alumni are here this week, for some reason, and of course they picked the exact wrong week to visit.  An earthquake could probably rattle the streets of San Francisco and the next day Pete and Brendon and the whole gang would show up with canteens full of tequila and glowsticks in lieu of flashlights.

They meet up in the parking lot and Pete says, a careless non sequitur:  “Let’s go get cannoli.”

Patrick’s wearing a surgical mask and his eyes are red behind his glasses, his fingers clenched around his inhaler.  Lynn glances around at the cluster of teenagers with their faces similarly covered and she kind of thinks this is a bad idea, except they’re already piling into their respective cars, and Ashley’s tugging on her arm and whining, “I don’t care if it’s the end of the world Lyndsey I want _dessert,_ ” with those big stupid puppy-dog eyes that Lynn always says she hates but would actually die for in a fucking heartbeat.

They end up packed like sardines in Dallon’s car, Ashley on Lynn’s lap, Lynn’s arms clasped around Ashley’s waist as a makeshift seatbelt.  With each turn they lurch to the side and Lynn’s heart skips a beat, her grip on Ashley tightening even as her legs protest the extra weight.  Ashley clings to the handhold and presses her nose to the window, like a small child.

“That’s some apocalypse shit,” she murmurs, awe-stricken.  “I could write, like, an entire album about this sky.  Love songs for the end of the world.”

“Can you, like, not?” Lynn says, voice strained.  “You’re hurting me, and I wanna graduate before I die, thank you very much.”

“School’s for tools,” Ashley scoffs, but she shifts her weight into an empty part of the seat and Lynn relaxes a little.  Next to them Jon is poking Spencer, who’s in shotgun, and Brendon is awkwardly curled up in Ryan’s lap, like an oversized toddler.

“Y’know,” says Lynn, “I’ve never had a cannoli.”

“Me neither,” says Ashley, grinning.

“You’re missin’ out, man,” Brendon pipes up.  “Cannoli is, like, the best thing ever.”

“Last week you said the guy who played Lola in _Kinky Boots_ was the best thing ever,” Ryan points out.

“That was last week.  Get with the times, Ryan.”

The car lurches again, and Dallon curses under his breath and Jon and Brendon whoop loudly as they sway to the side and Lynn holds fast to Ashley, her heart fluttering, her stomach doing flip-flops even though she’s sure they’ve done this before.

“Thanks for not making me ride in the trunk,” Ashley shouts, reaching an arm out to swat the back of Dallon’s headrest.

“Behave, kiddo,” Dallon says, dad-like, and Lynn would laugh if she wasn’t so busy trying to keep Ashley from falling out of her lap.  “I might change my mind.”

 

\--

 

The cannoli place is small—about half the size of Lynn’s English classroom—and the fifteen of them basically swallow the place whole when they stand inside, so as a courtesy to the owners they duck out to eat in a mostly empty-parking garage.  The sun hangs low and ominous ahead of them, the group surprisingly subdued despite the sugar and the smoke and their general coexistence.

Ashley’s perched atop the hood of Pete’s rental van, one leg propped up (“Sit on my car and I’ll eat you,” Dallon threatened, with a wagging finger and a pointed look at Brendon), and Lynn’s sitting on the ground, rough concrete scraping her palms.

“You realize if it breaks,” she says, raising an eyebrow at Ashley, “you’re paying for it.”

Ashley licks sugar and mascarpone from her fingers, nonchalant.  “I have cash.”

“Last week you asked if you could borrow forty bucks for homecoming tickets.”

“Fuck off, I’m lazy.”  Ashley throws a crumpled candy wrapper in Lynn’s direction.  “Also, this cannoli is amazing, so shut your face.”

“Laziness is no excuse for littering, Ash.  Or sitting on your friend’s car, which isn’t even your friend’s.”

Ashley rolls her eyes, but as Lynn starts off in search of a trash can she hears the faint thud of boots against asphalt, footsteps quickening in pace as Ashley jogs up to meet her.

“ _Lyndsey,_ ” she whines.  “Lyndsey, I was _joking._ ”

Lynn tosses the wrapper without acknowledging her, but she’s smiling.

“Don’t be like this, babe,” Ashley pleads.  “Please don’t call the EPA on me.  I promise I’ll be good.”

Lynn wants to keep up the charade, just because, but when she turns around and sees Ashley on her knees, fake-pouting up at her with her hands clasped to her chest and a dot of cream on the corner of her lips, she knows she’s done for.

“The EPA’s useless, anyway,” Lynn says, and when they kiss Ashley tastes like coffee and chocolate with a hint of peppermint.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

(Later, back at home, Ashley force-feeds Lynn the last cannoli.  It probably would’ve tasted better if Lynn hadn’t noticed the powdered sugar still surrounding Ashley’s face and choked on her bite.)

 

\--

 

California is on fire.

This time the smoke comes from both directions and the sky is hazy and thick, like fog but heavier and suffocating.

“No masks,” Lynn overhears one of the juniors say.  “We suffocate like men.”

In art she finds herself sketching out a girl on the hood of an old car, one leg propped up, her eyes squeezed shut like she’s found nirvana.

 _You know I’ve only felt religion when I’ve lied with you,_ phantom lips whisper in Lynn’s ear, and she can’t help but snort at the mental image of Ashley lying in bed with a giant cannoli.  At least she can cross _Christmas-present brainstorming_ off her to-do list.

“You know what I could go for?” Ashley muses aloud, glancing up from her sketchbook.  Sometimes the level of synchronicity they have is scary.

“Cannoli?” Lynn asks, barely hiding her amusement.

Ashley’s face lights up, contorts in ecstasy.  “You know me so well, Lyndsey.”

Lynn shakes her head, holding back a smirk.  “Ash, you can’t just keep buying cannoli every time there’s a fire.”

Ashley sticks her tongue out and says, “Watch me.”

The next day Lynn opens her locker to find an entire box of cannolis stacked on top of her textbooks.  She doesn’t even have time to wonder what on _Earth_ she’s supposed to do with all of them, because Alex and Brian are already beside her staring at them with equal amounts of awe and fear.

“Wow,” Alex says, and Brian whistles.

“Your girlfriend is insane,” he says.  “Never leave her.”

Lynn catches sight of the message printed in ridiculously perfect, bright-blue Sharpie handwriting and shakes her head.

_I know this is cheesy but I think you’re the sweetest <3 :D_

 

California is on fire, but maybe—just maybe—the skies are clearing.


End file.
